Intellectually honest and hilarious (Bitcoiners should listen up)...
Unhedged has been loudly, persistently and hilariously wrong about gold. If there is a world record for financial pundit wrongness, we must be getting close to it. We hated this asset at $2,500, and it just flew past $5,000. Under circumstances like these, rational people generally change their mind. We are trying to, and finding it a challenge.
Basic argument why gold is a fake out:
we can’t make sense of the most popular justifications for gold’s wild ride: the idea that the debasement of financial assets or heightened political uncertainty makes gold an irreplaceable diversifier or hedge.
"If there were such a risk, says Armstrong, "you would expect that to show up somewhere in the currency or fixed-income markets. And it has not shown up at all""If there were such a risk, says Armstrong, "you would expect that to show up somewhere in the currency or fixed-income markets. And it has not shown up at all"
But all the central banks buying gold?
Nope, they scaled back in 2025, says the World Gold Council, slowing their purchases to one-third less than in 2024. (Though, prices and margins!). So, it was always retail? Looks like it
And buying now? NO THANKS!
What makes the current case feel even bubblier is that silver, an asset with an even worse history of bubbles and busts, has shown up to the party in a huge way
to rationalise the gold rally, you have to believe that the bond market is lying to you, that the world is becoming a much worse place than any time in the past 50 years, or both. When Unhedged becomes convinced of either, we’ll change our mind on gold.
So, the fact that you can't see the necessary components for believing what your lying eyes are telling you, is somehow enough to not change your mind?
Uh-hu.
The uncomfortable double-wammy there is that the exact same dissonance applies to us Bitcoiners, scratching our heads in disbelief at this shitty price behavior.
Not sure what to make of any of this.
archive:
https://archive.md/CEnrk
You know how in the Song of Fire and Ice Books they keep saying "winter is coming" and then G RR Martin just stops writing books and is probably gonna kick it without ever finishing and we'll end up with a big fat lie because winter never comes?
Being a Bitcoiner (or a goldbug) is a lot like this. You've read the story so far and it seems pretty clear that that big ass wall of ice in the north is there for a reason...and all signs point to an imminent breach. We may not be literary scholars or fancy editors but we can pick up on the foreshadowing.
What we weren't counting on was that the author lost interest. Don't really know how that part of the analogy applies to the current situation re prices of gold, but darnit, sure feels similar.
I don't see any winter. Why should I believe that winter would be coming?
$38 trillion in debt and no balanced budget since 2001 feels like some frost in the air.
30 year yields only seem to go in one direction like snowflakes in the wind.
Paul Schmelzing, for the Bank of England, showed in the epicly poorly timed year 2020, that (real) rates just go in one direction, and it's not up:
Bitcoiners say to extend your vision/horizon, Scoresby-la
Oh sure, but I prefer to see the greater trend as the work of dragons (or in this case technology).
I never could figure out how seasons worked in Song of Fire and Ice, but being a humble human, I am doomed to experience the sweep of this story on such a short time scale that all I can see is the crazy upswing.
Since all we really care about is what our friends and neighbors are doing (damn those Lannisters), it doesn't matter whether we are experiencing the winter of 1620s or 2020s. Winter still sucks when it comes.
pray it never comes on my watch! ("and now my watch begins"?)
The post industrial economy including AI, is powered by electrons.
China has a giant wall of them feeding its consumers and producers, at half the price of any other industrialised economy.
China has the huge advantage in scale and price with a massive nuclear, solar, hydro and wind based electricity power generation surplus projected for 2030 while the USA is stuck in fossil fueled redundancy and faces chronic electricity generation shortages and rolling power cuts if projected AI power consumption is ever to be achieved.
China won the trade war.
USA cannot fight a war of any scale now without the supply of refined rare earths China holds.
The neoliberal financialisation and globalisation of the last 40 years have crippled the US military industrial complex and now Chinas domination of global trade in manufactured goods and commodities poses a real threat to the USA and its hegemony over the legacy organs of financial institutional global domination.
WW3 has begun as a mercantile contest while many remain ignorant and in denial of the reality that control of supply chains is a huge strategic lever and China holds it while enjoying $1.2 Trillion trade surpluses and a globally expanding network of infrastructure including tertiary level trade payments protocols and institutions that compete with the legacy USD/petrodollar/SWIFT hegemony.
I would say the TV series was the worse thing that could've happened to OG Song of Ice and Fire fans, but I kinda think he had already lost the plot prior to the TV series coming out.
Just another one on the heap of promising starts where the author never figured out how to tie all the threads together.
It could be embarrassing if they were to pile in at the top. My guess is that's why they wouldn't change their minds until they get an entry they like.
Who’s hysterically buying up all this gold and silver?
The normal metal mongers are the ones saying everything is fine right now.
Mom and pop and bro and sis?
They also don't have that mind of money
Not mine
Swapped some sats for gold late last year.
There is a flight to safety as WW3 progresses and the US military industrial combine is crippled due to loss of refined rare earths...and multiple other dysfunctions.
Longer term Bitcoin has more potential upside but short-medium term as the petrodollar dies, gold has it as a safe haven.
Most of the purchases over recent years have been the central banks of China, Russia, Gulf States, Turkey etc increasing their gold holdings and reducing USTs.
Gold holdings held by central banks are now higher than at any time since the 1970s and purchases are still increasing significantly in dollar denominated terms even if tonnes are reduced due to significant increase in price/tonne..
Incorrect.
Most of the "increase" in CB holdings is accounting effect because of price price going up. Cbs have been buying but not that much
Wrong.
'Central banks, which were net sellers of gold for many years, flipped to net buyers in 2010 when they reassessed their risks following the financial crisis sparked by the American mortgage meltdown. Central banks picked up the pace of their gold purchases in 2022.
That is when the West sanctioned Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Central banks in countries that have strained relationships with the West, including China, have been shifting away from dollar-based assets into gold, which is beyond the reach of foreigners.
Others, including the National Bank of Poland, an aggressive gold buyer that on Tuesday approved another big purchase, seek to ensure the stability of their own currencies by adding assets without the same risks as sovereign debt.
“Central banks are buying gold not just purely for its price performance, but the role that it can play in foreign reserves,” said Juan Carlos Artigas, head of research for the World Gold Council. “Gold is very useful to hedge or diversify the reserves.”'
https://www.wsj.com/finance/commodities-futures/gold-prices-5000-ounce-2026-67361c87
I don’t know if it is central banks but foreign entities are most certainly buying gold as a substitute for US treasuries. Haven’t seen it in the treasury market yet because hedge funds are buying a shit ton of treasuries trying to pick up nickels in front of a steamroller. Probably because they know the Fed won’t let the trade go too badly for them.
Is this a bubble or a trend?
The beginning of the end of USD/petrodollar hegemony?
According to current market sentiment at Predyx.com the chances of Gold topping USD$6000 before May are ~58% and rising.
https://beta.predyx.com/market/gold-price-6000-before-may-2026-1769394325
Ladies and Gentlemen-
Place your sats where your prognostications point, and profit handsomely!
BRICS (China) are introducing a gold backed trade payments alternative to SWIFT in April.
The end of the petrodollar has already begun.
Central bank purchases of gold denominated in USD are unprecedented.
Only reason tonnes purchased last year decreased was price increase.
The ratio of gold / fiat held by central banks is still increasing.
The FT is sponsored by fiat financial system derivatives brokers . . . they are paid to shit on gold...and Bitcoin.
https://twiiit.com/Croesus_BTC/status/2015835204619743696